BMW Won't Focus Solely on EV Production, Will Still Make Gasoline and Hydrogen Cars

KatadataOTO – The sale of electric cars in the world seems to be unsatisfactory for many parties. Especially for manufacturers from mainland Europe.

This is because manufacturers from China, such as BYD, continue to dominate the global EV (Electric Vehicle) market in 2025.

Citing a report from Carnewschina, during the first quarter of 2025, BYD successfully recorded sales of 416,399 electric four-wheeled vehicles.

Meanwhile, citing Electrek, global electric car sales from January to April 2025 reached 5.6 million units.

Photo : BMW

However, brands from China still dominate. They successfully recorded sales of 3.3 million vehicles.

The situation above makes the competition between manufacturers even tighter. This is compounded by the trade war between China and the United States.

Automatically, EV producers from the blue continent are increasingly squeezed. As is being felt by BMW.

The German manufacturer believes that consumers are reluctant to buy EVs as quickly as analysts predicted some time ago.

Then, policy differences in each European country have caused their electric car sales to plummet.

“We take ambitious political goals seriously. But we do not believe in regulations that are technically one-sided and create supply restrictions (for EVs),” said Oliver Zipse, CEO of BMW, to Carscoops on Tuesday (20/05).

Furthermore, Zipse gave an example that in Belgium the government provides significant incentives for the purchase of electric cars.

This stimulus has successfully boosted sales of environmentally friendly four-wheeled vehicles. Even reaching a 60 percent market share there.

However, in Italy, a different situation has occurred. In the Land of Pizza, EVs only contribute four percent.

“As a standalone technology, electric cars are heading towards a dead end, that is now clear,” he said.